TEHRAN (FNA)- The United States and its NATO allies are still stuck in the tangled war in Afghanistan. Their efforts seem to make no progress toward winning, while simultaneously feeling like they can’t just end it and walk away.

It is against this backdrop that the heads of intelligence services of China, Russia, Iran and Pakistan had a meeting on Tuesday, July 10, in Islamabad to discuss measures against the threat of ISIL in Afghanistan.

According to Sergei Ivanov, the chief of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service's press bureau, “The conference reached understanding of the importance of coordinated steps to prevent the trickling of ISIL terrorists from Syria and Iraq to Afghanistan from where they would pose risks for neighboring countries."

The Director of the Foreign Intelligence Service, Sergei Naryshkin, represented Russia in the conference, during which the top security and intelligence officials also stressed the need for a more active inclusion of regional powers in the efforts to settle the conflict in Afghanistan.

On the day that the regional security conference took place, ISIL claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing in Afghanistan that killed at least 12 people, many of whom were children, and two intelligence officers. The attack took place in Jalalabad, the capital of Nangarhar province where ISIL has a stronghold.

It also came a day after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made an unannounced visit to Afghanistan to reassure that nation that the US was committed to participating in Afghan-led negotiations with the Taliban to end ISIL attacks in the region.

Apparently, “America’s longest war in history” is no longer about the Taliban and Al-Qaeda - the main reason the US and company invaded Afghanistan in 2001. This is now a war with ISIL, which is competing with its rival the Taliban to spread carnage in that country and beyond.

To that end, the ISIL militants, backed by foreign fighters, are challenging the Taliban in the provinces of Jowzjan, Faryab and Kunduz, where they are building trafficking routes into neighboring Central Asian states. The turf war could easily spill on to the neighboring countries and that says why Iran, China, Russia, and Pakistan are not taking any chances.

Unlike the US and the military-industrial complex, Iran, China, Russia, and Pakistan don’t thrive on the breakdown of existing order, military coups, civil wars and color revolutions in order to impose invented imperial realities upon world’s citizenry for a full spectrum dominance. These regional states didn’t meet in Islamabad to compete against each other for a false flag operation to bring their forces into Afghanistan on a permanent basis to wage war against the country and its neighbors.

Knowing that the US may not be interested in bringing stability to Afghanistan for its own strategic interests, they seek to form a possible alliance in order to adjust their politics to the global changes, to respond to the associated regional security challenges of the US war in Afghanistan, and to bring regional stability particularly seeking a political solution to the Afghan war.

The biggest fear among these regional countries is the emergence of ISIL in Afghanistan. There are reports that thousands of ISIL militants are being sent to Afghanistan from Syria, a development, China, Russia, Iran and Pakistan believe is aimed at further destabilizing the war-torn country. These countries suspect that the US may be using ISIL as proxy to further its interests particularly to counter China and a resurgent Russia.

No doubt terrorism is a worldwide problem. The only way to defeat terrorism is to have a worldwide network of states willing to work together to this end – with no strings attached and certainly no political reservations. The fact remains that overconfidence on the part of the US has failed to provide a strategic framework to deal with the problem of terrorism in Afghanistan.

These factors can provide a pathway to judging victory and defeat, the discussion of which is suspiciously lacking in corporate media and official circles. Many seem willing to backtrack on the issue of the Global War on Terror if Iran, Russia and China are involved. This arrogant policy is absurd and self-defeating, and always has been.